How missing votes affects the GOP primary
Sadie Hill
-Staff Writer-
The first caucus to kick off the 2012 presidential election, located in Iowa
has been tampered with. The voting and counting procedure is clearly described by the Republican Party of Iowa’s official website, iowagop.org.
Unfortunately, despite the transparency of the vote count process, eight counties
(thousands of votes) in Iowa were “lost,” according to official records. The election was
considered incomplete. Meanwhile, there is no explanation for the loss. Mitt Romney and
Rick Santorum both had the most counted votes, about 29,800, followed by Ron Paul at a
close 3,800 votes behind. The eight missing counties could have easily changed the
lead. However, the Iowa Republican party decided that Romney and Santorum would
discuss the lost votes and decide. They concluded that Santorum had won the first
caucus of the 2012 election. If you are not on Santorum’s side that should infuriate you.
They just handed over Iowa to Santorum, it could have been any candidate’s win. The
Iowa straw polls supports that.
2011 Straw Poll Full Results (Votes, %)
1. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (4823, 28.55%)
2. Congressman Ron Paul (4671, 27.65%)
3. Governor Tim Pawlenty (2293, 13.57%)
4. Senator Rick Santorum (1657, 9.81%)
5. Herman Cain(1456, 8.62%)
6. Governor Rick Perry (718, 3.62%) write-in
7. Governor Mitt Romney (567, 3.36%)
8. Speaker Newt Gingrich (385, 2.28%)
If everyone’s vote does not count, much less every state’s, how can anyone have
faith in the election process that determines our government? The fair thing to do if the
votes really had been “lost” would be to delay the deadline and take another count in
those missing counties. But let us be realistic, those votes were not lost.
Ironically, Matt Strawn, the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, resigned
shortly after the official results were made public. But not before making a public
statement reassuring the public the Iowa has been in good hands. That is ridiculous!
His resignation is obviously motivated by the voter fraud, shame or guilt of knowing
about the corruption of the voting process. The public resignation letter on the official
party site is obviously a compromise for his fellow party members. It is a rehearsed,
carefully-worded attempt to convince the public there was no fraud, in the midst of all
the controversy.
Nice try, Matt Strawn.
But do not worry, there is more. Most recently, The Republican Party of Maine
not only miscounted votes but recorded inconsistent votes with the Waldo county even
though the votes were called in on time. In Waldo county, 17 of 18 municipalities’
caucus votes that were held on Feb. 4t, showed up blank on the official GOP. Not
only did the GOP have the wrong number of votes for some counties, but the Chairman
of the Repulican Party of Maine, Charlie Webster, declared Mitt Romney the winner on
Feb. 11, without even taking the votes of Washington and Hancock counties.
There are only 194 votes that separate Romney from Paul. There are 6,876 registered
Republican voters in Washington County but the Maine GOP decided to just not count it.
Hancock was rescheduled due to bad weather. Party officials cancelled the caucus in
Washington because of bad weather, but they will still not count the rescheduled
caucus. As if that is not enough, the official GOP website in Maine counties is not
totaled correctly. There are measures in Maine now attempting to remove Webster
from his position as chairman. “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC breaks it down
well. There is no rational basis for the final results of Maine. The Republican Party of
Maine is just going to decide on its own.
The Republican GOP is messing it up everywhere; these are not the only
discrepancies that have been found in the caucuses so far–just the most obvious,
blatant attempts to rig the caucuses. Young Americans need to perk up and listen
because this stuff should be headline news. Preferably, before the paid interests get
their man in office instead of ours.
